Four new faculty members with expertise over a range of topics in international affairs have joined the Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q).
Sonia Alonso Saenz De Oger, Prof Anatol Lieven, Dr Rory Miller and Dr Clyde Wilcox have already begun teaching courses at the university.
Alonso is an assistant professor at GU-Q and a polyglot with fluency in Spanish, English, French, Italian and German. Her relocation to Doha marks the first move outside Europe and she cites both the university and the country as the main reasons for it.
“Georgetown is a prestigious university with an excellent liberal arts programme. This was an opportunity to get to know a different culture and a different region. Qatar has become a land of opportunity for those dedicated to education and research.”
Alonso brings her expertise in comparative European politics, federalism and nationalist conflict.
Lieven moved to Georgetown from the War Studies Department at King’s College London. He started his career as a journalist in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s, and later as a correspondent for The Times, London in the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1996. From 2000-2007, he worked at think tanks in Washington DC and remains a senior fellow of the New America Foundation.
“I am currently teaching courses on contemporary global security issues and on US foreign policy, with future plans to teach courses on nationalism and on international relations and security in South Asia.”
He has written several books, including Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.
Miller is currently teaching his first semester courses called “The European Union and the GCC in Comparative Perspective” and “External Intervention in the Middle East”, but his time will also be spent on writing.
“Currently I am working on books on how small states, including GCC states, become powerful in the international system and on how and why external parties - Europe, America, Japan - get involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Wilcox has taught on Georgetown’s main campus in Washington DC for 27 years, and was inspired to continue teaching on the Doha campus.
“Over the past decade I have met with many international visitor groups and have lectured throughout the Middle East. So I came to learn more about the region, and it reawakened my academic interests at the idea of teaching a new and different set of students.”
GU-Q dean Dr Gerd Nonneman commented: “We are delighted that these highly regarded scholars have made the choice to join our world-class faculty. We look forward to their contributions towards our continued development as a leading education and research institution in the social sciences and humanities, helping to realise the development goals of Qatar’s national vision.”